A seminarian forwarded the following blog entry to me. Wow, this makes so much sense.
Check out the entire article
Like most priests I've attended lots of Priest Assembly days and listened to the usual talks on the problem of the 'vocations shortage'. My own view is that we are barking entirely up the wrong tree. Although the lack of vocations is a problem it is not the problem, merely a symptom of the problem.
Vocations are like happiness - you cannot seek it in itself. Happiness comes automatically, all by itself, when we get certain things in our life right.
The problem about vocations is that we have got too many things wrong and I believe a major one, if not the main one, is that we priests are scandalously disobedient.
Every vocation is a grace and grace flows through the pipleline of obedience. When we are not obedient as priests we are discouraging the very vocations we tell each other we lack. Every single act of priestly disobedience, no matter how small, whether catechetical, liturgical, moral, theological, canonical or otherwise dries up vocations at their source - God's grace.
2 comments:
Father, Just this week I posted on this...from the Council of Trent (via my classwork).
Vocations are such a huge theme this time of year for obvious reasons, but the answers for the "shortage" are so clear.
Here's the link:
http://adorotedevote.blogspot.com/2008/04/hidden-life.html
Um, however Father Speekman's post is a lot more direct as I go off on my own musings that pertain more to my own discernment n'stuff. Basically, he says what Trent says.
Obedience is so key..it's the antithesis of Pride and its corrolary of Vanity. Even a little obedience opens the floodgates so we can allow the virtue to grow.
And then, suddenly, we're saying "yes" to God. And there is endless Grace.
Recently, I heard someone identify himself as a 'rebel.' Knowing that man's track record of disobedience, I wished he'd have the courage to rebel against the spirit of the age, rather than whatever tired old bogies against which he prefers to joust.
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